The Trump administration is preparing an executive order that would halt federal funding, at least temporarily, for a risky and controversial kind of research into viruses that makes the pathogens more dangerous or contagious.
The goal of the order would be to stop scientists with U.S. funding from conducting “gain-of-function” research on viruses that could endanger human health, people familiar with the plans said.
Some viruses, such as the H5N1 bird-flu pathogen, might be exempt from the order, one of the people said.
The order hasn’t been finalized, and its specifics are a work in progress, the person said.
Some Republicans have blamed the Covid-19 pandemic on gain-of-function research. Defenders say it helps scientists assess the potential of pathogens to infect humans and find ways to combat them.
President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, has expressed support for a pause on the research.
The gain-of-function studies had been a staple of research into viruses, but became an object of controversy and criticism during the pandemic crisis. Republicans in Congress criticized the studies. The Biden administration had begun taking steps to rein in the research.
In the experiments, scientists modify, in a secure laboratory, a virus to learn about how it could spread rapidly or evade medicines. Many virologists have argued that studying viruses in controlled settings, with appropriate regulation, is necessary to prepare for future pandemics.
Other countries, defenders also say, will continue the studies and outpace the U.S. scientifically should the scientific work be limited in the U.S.
“It would be a terrible idea to halt research that is necessary to protect us,” said Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and biosafety expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “People can bury their heads in the sand, but there are lots of viral threats out there, and you’re not going to be able to solve that threat without understanding viruses.”
Some Republicans have blamed gain-of-function work for the Covid-19 pandemic, asserting the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
Many scientists and public-health officials have said there isn’t any public evidence that an experiment at the Wuhan lab could have created the virus that caused the pandemic.
A U.S. intelligence report released in 2021 said that the virus causing Covid-19 was likely the result of an accident if it leaked from a lab, rather than the product of deliberate genetic engineering.
